F-16 Air Fighter

An old chap once told me that as a young lad during World War 2 he helped on his father's farm in a small village outside Leicester. His was a mostly quiet life, except for the time, after a hard day's ploughing, when he was fired upon by a Messerschmitt 109. As he hid behind his tractor for cover, he'd never felt more alive.

Nowadays, of course, anyone can get their aviation combat fix without having to stand in the line of German machine gun fire – simply delve into a game like In-Fusio's vertical scrolling shoot-'em-up, F-16 Air Fighter, instead.

The missions involve the usual variety of objectives, such as destroying enemy forces or getting new coordinates to a stranded friendly carrier that has lost power to its engines.

Control of your fighter is equally standard, via the typical layout of keys or the thumb stick, while pressing '#' will deploy one of your F-16's bombs and '*' activates your heat seekers. As for acrobatics, you can rely on evasive manoeuvres such as loops or left and right rolls, which are great for getting you out of trouble (and nicely animated) but at the cost of fuel.

At least money doesn't necessarily run in short supply. You're rewarded handsomely for destroying waves of enemy fighters or achieving the main objectives of your mission, and you can subsequently spend your cash on improving your plane. You do this in the Upgrade Shop at the start of every level, increasing the aircraft's fire rate or capacity to hold a greater payload of bombs and missiles.

As you might expect, in addition to the fighters, bombers and helicopter gunships littering the sky, you're also required to tackle an assortment of ground- and sea-based enemies such as tanks, warships, submarines and ground-to-air missile batteries.

And not only do you have to keep an eye on the damage you are sustaining, but as previously mentioned your fuel levels can also be a cause for concern. Still, if your gas gets too low you can refuel in mid-air, which is a nice touch.

That's something you can also say of the visuals. F-16 Air Fighter looks great for a mobile top-down shooter, with detailed graphics, smooth scrolling and a gaming area that doesn't feel too cramped.

Complementing the visual aesthetics is the sound, which features decent effects and a theme tune that neatly evokes memories of '80s TV shows like Airwolf and Knight Rider.

It's not all good news, though. The game's biggest problem is the speed in which your fighter moves forwards and back – it's just too slow and you can find yourself getting caught out and consequently dying. Avoiding all the enemy fire can become nigh on impossible, too, which is less to do with the individual phone (on our Sony Ericsson K750i test phone this otherwise solid shooter is a real dog to control at times – the phone's thumb stick is not the best for this type of game) but rather a genuine game design issue.

Still, the niggling issues with the control of the fighter don't exactly shoot F-16 Air Fighter down. It's not as thrilling as being fired upon by an enemy fighter plane, but it's certainly a shoot-'em-up that is worth a download for anyone who's a fan of the genre.